Hearts of Gold (25 page)

Dan was flat on his back on the canvas. Eddie, blood streaming down his face, stood wild-eyed and panting in the centre of the ring. Joey clambered over the ropes and lifted Eddie’s hand high into the air.

‘The next world flyweight champion,’ Joey shouted ecstatically above the noise of the crowd.

‘Some brother you’ve got there, Bethan,’ Trevor complimented.

‘I always knew that.’ She was crying. Tears streamed unchecked down her cheeks as she stared at Eddie. Shocked no longer, he was grinning at the crowd, confident and victorious. But all she could think of was that neither she, nor Haydn, nor her father would ever be able to stop him from boxing again – and again. 

Chapter Twelve

‘Table for –’Andrew checked the size of his party – ‘eight please, Mr Rogers.’

‘Of course, Dr John.’ Dai Rogers, under manager of the New Inn Hotel bowed, fawning not so much because of Andrew but Andrew’s father and his influence. ‘This way please, Doctor.’

He led them past the magnificent central staircase that dominated the entrance hall to the hotel, and into the comfortably furnished lounge. He beckoned brusquely to a waiter, who immediately finished scribbling down the order he was taking and rushed to his side.

‘We have a nice table in the corner, Dr John,’ the waiter ventured, pointing to a low round table surrounded by comfortably padded red plush chairs.

‘It will do fine,’ Andrew agreed briskly. ‘And as it’s thirsty work watching boxing, I’ll have a beer, Trevor?’

‘Me too, thank you.’

‘Haydn, Eddie, William?’

‘I think pints will be fine for all of us, thank you,’ Haydn said quickly, forestalling William, who was on the point of asking for whisky, and looking out for Eddie who was still a little shell-shocked as well as overawed by the surroundings.

‘Five pints please,’ Andrew said to the waiter. Dai Rogers continued to hover at the waiter’s elbow, making sure that he wrote the order down correctly.

‘Ladies?’ Andrew looked to Bethan, Laura and Jenny Griffiths who sat nervously on the edge of the chair next to Haydn’s.

‘Sherry,’ Laura said decisively. ‘A large one. I need it.’

‘Anyone would think you’d just gone three rounds with Desperate Dan, not Eddie.’ Andrew joked. ‘Bethan?’

‘I’ll have a sherry as well please.’

‘And, Miss Griffiths?’

‘Jenny,’ she said shyly. ‘Could I have a lemonade please?’

‘Most certainly. Two large Sherries, one lemonade and sandwiches for eight. Ham and pickle, and cheese and cucumber all right for everyone?’

‘Cakes?’ Laura enquired hopefully.

‘And a plate of cakes. Cream and plain.’

Dai Rogers nodded to the waiter, who disappeared in the direction of the kitchens.

‘Pleasure to serve you, Dr John. As always.’

‘Thank you, Mr Rogers; it’s a pleasure to be here.’

Left to the peace of the secluded corner, Andrew sat back and pulled out his cigarette case. He offered it around. William, Haydn and Trevor helped themselves, Eddie declined.

‘What does it feel like to have won your first important bout?’ Andrew asked, wanting to break the ice.

‘All right,’ Eddie answered briefly, resting his battered face on his hand.

‘It’s good of you to come with us. I suspect you would rather have stayed in the booth with your friends.’

‘I think it’s just as well Eddie left when he did,’ Haydn said. ‘Jim Dekker was about to make him an offer and Joey has other things in mind for his protégé.’

‘That’s not to say I won’t try my hand in a boxing booth again,’ Eddie countered truculently.

‘You’ll never make odds again like the ones you made today,’ Andrew commented. ‘I hope you put the maximum you could afford on yourself?’

‘We all did.’ William smiled, cheering up at the sight of the beer arriving. ‘If he’d lost there would have been a queue of Powells a mile long outside the workhouse in the morning.’

Bethan set her mouth into a thin hard line at William’s bad joke. She loved him as much as she loved her brothers, but she knew their faults and failings. It wasn’t difficult to read the small signs of resentment against Andrew and the privileged world he represented. And she was furious with Haydn and William for playing down to Andrew, deliberately setting themselves out to be courser, less educated and less intelligent than they really were.

The way they were acting made her ashamed. She hated them for forcing her to face up to the changes Andrew had wrought in her in such a short space of time. A few months with him had been enough for her to adopt his ways – to deliberately refine the roughened edges of her Welsh accent, to watch what she said and the way she said it, in his company. To take good food, drink, and things like tea out in hotels for granted. For the first time she realised that the boys had noticed the changes and despised her for it. Almost as much as they despised Andrew for being crache.

There was a flurry of activity; the waiter laid the sandwiches, cakes, plates, knives and forks on the table. As soon as he left, Andrew, very much the host, handed around the sandwiches. They all began eating with the exception of Eddie who sat supping his pint slowly.

‘I wish you’d let me look at your face.’ Bethan moved her chair closer to Eddie’s.

‘It’s fine,’ he insisted irritably.

‘It doesn’t look fine.’ She touched his bloodied cheekbone with the tips of her fingers.

‘The cuts are superficial,’ Trevor said authoritatively. ‘It’s the bruising you’re going to have to watch.’

‘I bet they don’t feel superficial.’ Andrew smiled amicably at Eddie in an attempt to win him over.

He didn’t return the smile. Instead he sat sullenly staring down into his beer. He didn’t feel like talking. In fact he didn’t feel much like anything. He’d been looking forward to his first real, meaningful fight for so long that now it had actually happened he felt flat. He’d wanted to stay in the booth and discuss the possibility of a job with Dekker, but Dekker had been put in a foul mood by his champion’s failure, and Joey had pushed him out with a sharp “Play the booths, boy. Don’t work in them. That’s a sure road to nowhere.”

He drained his beer glass and put it down. Sliding his fingers outside his starched collar, he tried to loosen it. He felt on edge, out of place, ridiculous, like when he was seven years old and his mother had forced him into an angel’s costume for the chapel pageant. He glanced across at Bethan’s boyfriend and put the man into the “smarmy, not to be trusted” category. The doctor probably meant well, he allowed grudgingly, but everything Andrew John did and said smacked of condescension. It was as if he wanted the whole world to know he had money and could afford to spend it. He’d bought Bethan and now he wanted to buy them all. Well he for one wasn’t impressed. If Dr high-and-mighty John had wanted to treat them to tea he should have met them half-way and taken them all to Ronconis’ cafe. There at least they would have been on familiar territory, not this … this stuffed-shirt place. He’d had enough. He’d just won a fight. He had a fiver in his pocket and he didn’t have to put up with anything he didn’t want to.

He left his chair awkwardly, kicking the table and slopping the beer and sherry on to the cloth.

‘Where are you off to?’ Haydn asked.

‘See Joey.’ He fumbled in his pocket. All he had was the five pound note he’d won, and a penny-farthing, and that wouldn’t cover the cost of a pint in the New Inn.

‘This one is on me, Eddie,’ Andrew said quietly, seeing Eddie’s hand side into his pocket.

‘Buy you one next time I see you. Bye everyone.’

Bethan’s voice floated after him as he left the room.

‘Haydn, is he all right? Shouldn’t one of us go with him?’

Then came Haydn’s voice uncharacteristically cutting and impatient. ‘For pity’s sake, Bethan, he’s seventeen. It’s time you broke the apron strings.’

Eddie paused to straighten his tie in front of the large gilt framed mirror that filled the end wall of the lounge. He took a moment to study their reflections. Haydn, his hand on Jenny’s knee under the table where he thought it couldn’t be seen, still arguing with Bethan. William, oblivious to everything except his beer and the food, helping himself to another sandwich. Laura, grinning like a miner who’d just been put on double rate drooling over the skinny fellow she was with, and that dark, smarmy sod eyeing Bethan as though she were on offer in the cattle market. He just hoped she wasn’t too dazzled to keep her wits about her.

He left the hotel and walked out into the sunshine. The street was packed with people, the music from the organ blasting at full tempo. He pulled his flat cap down low, covering his damaged eye, and walked up towards Market Square.

‘Cockles, sir? Sweet cockles?’

‘Candy floss, sir. Candy floss for your lady?’

‘I’ve got no lady,’ he replied gruffly.

‘You have now, Eddie. Bye, Doris.’ Daisy waved goodbye to her friend as she hooked her arm into his. ‘I was hoping I’d see you again soon,’ she smiled at him, displaying two rows of pearly white teeth set into very pink gums between even pinker lips.

‘Come in, sir. Buy the lady a ride on the wooden horse.’

‘Swinging boats, sir. Be amazed what you can do with a lady in a swinging boat.’

‘Cheeky beggar,’ Daisy retorted, pulling Eddie along with her as she struggled against the tide of people towards the top end of Market Square.

‘Shooting, sir. Nothing like a gun to impress the lady. Win her a prize?’

‘I’d love that little monkey, he’s cute.’ Daisy’s eyes sparkled with reflected sunshine as she gazed adoringly at Eddie.

‘The monkey’s not up for a prize, miss.’ The stallholder stroked the small creature clinging to his shoulder. ‘But you can have a nice ornament for your bedroom?’ He held up a grotesque chalk figure of a shepherdess.

‘The monkey or nothing.’ Daisy made a sulky mouth.

‘Goldfish, miss.’ He held up a large sweet bottle in which fish were circling one another in a stew that was more fish than water.

‘How about a toy monkey?’ Eddie pointed to one pinned to the side of the booth.

‘Twelve hits of the target, sir, and he’s yours.’

‘I’ll take twelve shots.’

‘Penny a shot. Four for three pence.’

Eddie handed over his precious fiver.

‘Four pounds nineteen and three pence change, sir.’ The stallholder shovelled four pound notes into Eddie’s hand and topped them with a pile of change. Eddie counted the whole amount carefully from one hand into the other, calling the stallholder back sharply when he realised he’d been short-changed by half a crown.

‘Can’t blame a chap for trying, sir,’ the man said cheerfully, handing over the missing coin together with the rifle and pellets. Eddie loaded a pellet and looked down the barrel.

‘North,’ he murmured to himself.

‘Did you say something?’ Daisy asked.

‘They bend the barrels to lengthen the odds in their favour. Whenever my father took us to the fair when we were little he always used to make for the shooting galleries so he could point out the defects in the guns. If they were bent upwards it was north, downwards south. This one’s north.’

‘No bent barrels here, mate,’ the stallholder shouted angrily.

Eddie didn’t bother to answer. Instead he lifted the rifle, took aim and fired. It was difficult to know who was the more surprised when he hit the bull’s-eye, Daisy or the stallholder. He fired his remaining shots in quick succession. Each one hit the centre of the target, and the man grudgingly unpinned the toy from the canvas.

‘Here you are, miss.’ He leaned over and handed it to Daisy, brushing her hand with his own as he did so.

‘Sure you won’t change your mind about giving away the real thing?’ Daisy smiled.

‘Depends on what you’ve got to offer,’ the man said, eyeing her appreciatively.

‘The lady’s with me,’ Eddie snarled.

‘Looks like she’d prefer a monkey.’

‘I’d be careful what I say if I were you.’ Daisy wrapped her arm around Eddie’s. ‘He’s just knocked out Dekker’s champion.’

Eddie pushed his cap to the back of his head and glared furiously, unwittingly exposing his cut and bruised eye.

‘Sorry, mate. Didn’t mean nothing,’ the stallholder apologised.

Eddie turned away and Daisy, still clinging to his arm, tottered alongside him.

‘Well you’ve got your monkey,’ Eddie said. ‘Where to now?’

‘Ride on the horses?’

They waited for the largest roundabout in the fair to stop. Painted gold, with beautifully carved red and gold wooden horses and cockerels riding three abreast, it was the oldest ride in Dante’s fair and his pride and joy. Caught up in the rush of people clambering off and on, Eddie pulled Daisy up the steep wooden steps. He sat on one of the inside horses and she climbed up in front of him, sitting demurely in a side-saddle position, her right arm low around his waist. It was the first time Eddie had been physically close to a woman outside of the family and a peculiar mixture of pride, shyness and embarrassment beset him as he delved into his trouser pocket for two pennies to pay the boy who was collecting the fares.

The organ music rose to a crescendo as the roundabout began to turn. Slow at first, it gradually rotated faster and faster. The horses moved up and down with a speed that seemed geared to the music, and Daisy squealed and wriggled closer to Eddie on each downward movement. The warmth of her hand burned his back even through the thick layers of his suit jacket and trousers. Then, without warning, she wrapped both her arms around his waist. Bending her head to avoid the pole that stood between them she brushed her lips over his.

A peculiar excitement coursed through his veins, leaving an odd deflated tinny taste in his mouth when the ride ended. Buffeted by the crowds they left the roundabout and stood in the middle of Market Square.

‘Where to now?’ Eddie asked.

Daisy pulled up the sleeve of her long white cotton glove and squinted at her rolled gold watch.

‘I have to be in the theatre soon. Two shows tonight.’ She made a face.

‘Oh.’ He didn’t know what he’d hoped for, but it certainly hadn’t been that. He should have known. After all, Haydn had introduced them, and he’d moaned enough about having to work tonight. He waited foolishly, feeling clumsy and ham-fisted next to her perfumed, feminine figure.

‘I do have time for a quick drink.’ She smiled at the crestfallen expression on his face. And if you want to watch the show I gave you a ticket earlier, remember. Second house finishes at half-nine. I’m free then if you want to take me somewhere.’

‘I’d like that.’ His spirits soared at the prospect.

‘Where’s a good place to drink?’ she asked. It may have been his imagination but he thought he saw her glance towards the New Inn. ‘Two foot nine,’ he said boldly, giving the town’s pet name for the back bar of the Victoria at the top end of Taff Street. From what Haydn had said some of the theatrical crowd from the New Theatre went there, and perhaps Daisy might feel at home in the surroundings.